ok rant incoming, but with a question at the end. earlier this year i hired a growth consultant. found her through a warm intro, references checked out, she'd worked with 2 saas companies in our space. we paid $2400 for what was billed as a 4-week engagement.
what we got was, week 1, a kickoff call where we explained our business. week 2, a slack message asking for analytics access and copies of past campaigns. week 3, silence. week 4, a 6 page google doc.
the doc was. fine? "focus on your icp". "clarify your messaging on the homepage". "consider running webinars with adjacent saas brands". "reddit can be a strong channel if you do it authentically". "track activation rate not signups". every single point was something id either already done or already considered. nothing in the doc referenced anything specific to our actual data. there were no campaigns. no copy. no creative. no introductions. no done-with-you anything. just generic frameworks rebranded as personalized strategy.
when i asked her about implementation she said "that wasnt in scope, you'd need to upgrade for the execution package which is $5800/month".
im not saying all consultants are like this. but i think there's a category of "strategy consultant" who basically sells a notion doc of evergreen advice, and the unspoken trick is most founders dont realize they're paying $600/page for things google or chatgpt would tell them for free.
so the question. for people who hired consultants and felt like they got real value, what was different? was it that the person actually did the work with you, or that they brought specific introductions, or that they had proprietary data, or something else? trying to figure out how to vet better next time so i dont waste another $2400. and is execution-included pricing the actual hallmark of someone serious or just a different kind of upsell